


ask anonymously

by sabotenworld



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16486124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabotenworld/pseuds/sabotenworld
Summary: Jihoon is dumb about his crush. He also gets a lot of anonymous messages.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coinseller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coinseller/gifts).



> Inspired by both of Jihoon's and Guanlin's old social media accounts! this is just REALLY DUMB idk why this is a thing but i hope it will get better??? and also this is so unfinished so it has 2 parts because i am impulsive and just feel the need to post something lmao help me pls. The setting was supposed to be in college but ask.fm is a very high school thing i guess??
> 
> i also dedicate this to ao3 user coinseller just because ao3 user coinseller is so lovely and wonderful!

During his entire first year in high school, Jihoon had zero interest in dating. What he always looked forward to was seeing his friends and dance club activities. He never really understood why girls would giggle to themselves over seeing that cool senior Hwang Minhyun (although Jihoon had to admit that Minhyun was kind of heart-fluttering), and why Hyeongseob was more interested in getting Woojin to like him instead of actually passing the physics exam Woojin tutored him for.

That is, until the first day of his sophomore year, when Jihoon saw a very, very, _very_ cute boy at during opening ceremony. The poor boy was trying so hard to keep his eyes open, and he had a mild case of bed head that morning, made obvious by how he towers over the other first year students. Jihoon suddenly felt like he was surrounded by flowers and sparkles at seeing Very Cute Boy.

 

Jihoon is lucky to find out later on that the boy’s classroom is beside his own, and that the bubbly kid Woojin introduced to him as his childhood friend Daehwi is also a first year who is friends with everyone… Which led Jihoon to finding the boy’s social media accounts on a group photo Daehwi tagged him in, where Very Cute Boy looked kind of awkward with all the freshman kids.

So his name was Lai Guanlin and he was originally from Taiwan (which Jihoon deduced from the flag of Taiwan on his profile). Jihoon's already stalked his Instagram, and he saw that the younger boy posted a lot of handsome foreign men and sometimes really pretty women, but since it was mostly men he hoped Guanlin was gay. Guanlin was foreign so Jihoon was foreign to him… Maybe there was hope that Guanlin could like him. He couldn't really understand most of the photo captions, as Guanlin usually captioned his pictures in Chinese and English (both of which Jihoon had no knowledge of). Thank goodness Google translate gave him a little glimpse into whatever Guanlin was saying.

Guanlin's IG handle kind of gives him second hand embarrassment though. What is edcurry30 even? Did Guanlin like Stephen Curry so much he wanted to marry him, or did he want to be him? Still, Jihoon thinks it's endearing that he was this much of a fanboy. He's kinda jealous of the basketball player if Guanlin likes him that much.

Jihoon checks his ask.fm, the one with the really cool username coolman300, and sees that he has 15 new asks. He sure is popular. He doesn't think he's as handsome as that first year Bae Jinyoung, but he did get his fair share of fangirls. He thanks several of the you're handsome message senders and gives his phone number to 8 of them who asked for it, until he comes across one strangely personal message.

_It’s hard to make friends._

It tugs at Jihoon's heart. Who was having so much trouble making friends that they had to resort to asking strangers anonymously for advice? Jihoon had to help this anon out.

"That's not good," Jihoon mumbles to himself as he types out the words. He chews on his lip, deep in thought, before typing and talking to himself again. "Try to talk to everyone as much as you can… If they won't be nice to you, fight them… You don't need friends like that. Hope you meet new people. Fighting!"

"That is terrible advice," Woojin comments unnecessarily beside him. The two of them had a love-hate relationship: sometimes he was a really good friend that Jihoon talked to about anything, but most of the time he was just this annoying side character in Jihoon's life story.

"Shut up, they weren't asking you! They were asking _me._ " Jihoon kicks him behind the shin and Woojin dodges with ease.

Woojin laughs at him. "Sure, coolman300."

 

-

 

Jihoon forgets about the troubled anon on his ask.fm, until they send him a follow-up message a week later:

_Hello Jihoon hyung. It’s friendless anon. Thank you for your previous advice. I have made some friends now. I would like to thank hyung personally sometime._

Jihoon stops chewing on his turkey sandwich to call Woojin to his desk. “See, the advice I gave out about making friends worked,” he rubs in Woojin’s face.

“I hope anon didn’t fight anyone because of your advice,” is Woojin’s biggest concern. He sits his ass on Jihoon’s desk and Jihoon would have shoved him off he hadn’t asked his next question. “Will you be meeting him then?”

Jihoon hasn’t really thought of the possibility of meeting any of his ask.fm askers. Even though a lot of them went through the trouble to ask him his phone number, none of them texted or called him, so what was the point of their asking him? They don’t really meet him anyway. “How do you even know he’s a guy?” he asks Woojin instead.

“He called you ‘hyung’. Duh.”

Now Jihoon feels dumb to not having come up with that conclusion himself.

“He’s a guy and he’s younger than you. His writing is a little strange too, like he isn’t really used to writing? Is he from the countryside? What if he’s foreign?” Woojin blabbers on like he’s in a detective anime.

The keyword ‘foreign’ ticks in Jihoon’s brain and he shoves Woojin off of his desk. His friends tumbles on to the floor, laughing at him even when Jihoon tackles him. “Don’t give me the idea that it’s _Lai Guanlin_ , stupid,” Jihoon hisses at him.

-

 

Friendless anon drops him a few asks once in a while, always signing off with _friendless anon_ so Jihoon knows it’s him. He’s become Jihoon’s favorite asker now, as he always asks a wide variety of things ranging from _do you like dogs or cats?_ to practical life advice like where to get good frozen yogurt.

“Ooh, I saw that hyung has a regular fan on ask.fm,” Daehwi greets him excitedly when they see each other at school. “I think I have an idea who it is too.” He gives Jihoon a playful wink that would have looked cringey if it was anyone else but Daehwi who did everything in a cute way.

That leaves Jihoon pondering about it after Daehwi sprints away to his group of first year friends. Right now Daehwi was hanging out with Samuel and Somi, but Jihoon knew Daehwi was a social butterfly and was friends with a lot of people. Hell, the kid even had more friends in Jihoon’s year than Jihoon. At the end of his Thinking Spree, Jihoon is left with zero idea of who Daehwi was friends enough to know their crushes.

-

 

Jihoon is entirely surprised when he and Friendless agree on a time and place to meet about a month after the first question. He’s calm and pretty excited to be meeting this mysterious friend of his at the bleachers at the gym on Friday at lunch time, specifically near the door…

Until he finds Lai Guanlin sitting on that exact spot Friendless decided on.

“Um.” Could it be him? Lai Guanlin stares back at him with his big eyes that make Jihoon’s heart want to _explode_ even more than it wants to with the thought of just being here with Guanlin. He clears his throat to not let Guanlin notice that the flesh is about to burn off of his face. “Was there anyone else here?” Jihoon wants to punch his own dumb face over how awkward he sounds.

“Just me.” Guanlin goes back to staring blankly at the boys playing a casual game of basketball on the court.

“Oh.” Friendless must not be here yet. Jihoon stumbles sitting down beside The Cutest Boy in the Whole School. “I’m waiting for someone. Is it okay if I wait with you?”

“I should leave to give you guys privacy,” Guanlin suggests, but before he can make a move to get up Jihoon stops him by grabbing on to the sleeve of his shirt. Aggressively.

Mortified at the realization that his impulse control has failed at the very presence of Lai Guanlin, he quickly lets go of Guanlin’s sleeve quickly, filing this event to the List of Things Woojin Will Never Let Him Forget. “Sorry! You were here first so you don’t have to leave.” God, he must look so utterly desperate now and Guanlin must hate him and Jihoon is drowning in self-loathing.

Guanlin gives him a curt nod, an unreadable expression on his face, and sits back down beside Jihoon.

The first few minutes are the most awkward silence Jihoon has ever experienced in his entire life. He can’t even fucking _breathe_ because Lai Guanlin’s stupid perfect profile is absolutely dazzling, his bangs down today looking all fluffy and adorable. He hopes Friendless hurries up and meets him before Jihoon a) has a heart attack, b) combusts, c) makes a fool of himself in front of Guanlin AGAIN, or d) all of the above. Well, if Friendless showed up any moment now then Jihoon should probably take this chance to talk to Guanlin and-

“Do you like Crunky?”

Jihoon turns his head to Guanlin and makes a sound that is probably what dumb would sound like.

“I said: do you like Crunky?” Guanlin repeats. He produces a Crunky bar from the messenger bag beside him. “We can share.”

Jihoon dumbly takes the half of his most favorite candy bar _ever_ that Guanlin hands him, and they eat in silence until Guanlin decides it’s time to go back to class.

“See you around,” Guanlin tells him as he gets up and collects his things. He gives Jihoon a shy smile and a small nod, both of which have Jihoon’s brain short-circuiting.

Once Jihoon’s brain works again, he realizes that he’s late to his next class and that he’s been stood up.


	2. halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jihoon embarrasses himself even more

“That was the 96th time you sighed heavily,” Woojin observes from where he’s watching Jihoon slumped over with his chin down on the top of his desk _suffering._ “What’s wrong, was Friendless Anon a creep?”

“Friendless Anon stood me up.” Jihoon sighs for the 97th time. “Woojin, Lai Guanlin was there instead and I fucking _grabbed_ him like some aggressive creep and we sat there and ate Crunky in the most awkward silence ever, just end me.” He whimpers at his friend, scrunching his hair with his hands.

As expected, Woojin laughs at his suffering. “Isn’t that a good thing though? To get to spend time with your crush?”

Judging from the amount of pain that Jihoon is in, he decides that it’s not. He replies with more dying sounds, muffled by his burying his face in his arms.

“Never mind your stupid crush. Have you decided what you’re going to wear for Halloween?”

Jihoon looks up. “Fuck.” He completely forgot! They were going to go to their senior Minki’s Halloween party that weekend and Jihoon hasn’t even thought of a costume yet. He’ll have to put his Guanlin-related suffering to the back of the shelf for now and take his thinking-of-a-costume suffering out.

-

Minki’s family was rich and they always spent a lot of money to make Halloween fun in the most high school kid-friendly ways possible, which meant food and drinks and a candy buffet table. Minki hated spooky stuff so there was nothing but a few cobwebs here and there as decoration, but  Minki’s annual Halloween party was something most people at their school looked forward to nonetheless. Although Kang Dongho describes it as ‘an excuse for Minki to dress up as Lady Gaga’.

Sure enough, when Woojin and Jihoon get to the party that weekend, there was Choi Minki in Lady Gaga’s Judas outfit. They say their pleasantries quickly before Minki goes to the dance floor, much to the entertainment of people who like watching other people making a fool of themselves.

Kang Dongho as an undead bandit is scaring freshmen unintentionally by standing by the candy buffet table helping himself to some cupcakes, and Jihoon immediately recognizes one of the scared freshmen as Lee Daehwi.

Woojin calls out to him and Daehwi is in a daze for a while out of illogical fear, but he scurries to them quickly with a smile on his face. Jihoon thinks his costume is a bunch of grapes but it look deflated.

Wait a minute. If Jihoon was a sophomore now and new freshmen were here then-

“I went here with Guanlin and Seonho,” Daehwi explains, pointing to a kid dressed as the big bad wolf dressed as the grandma in Little Red Riding Hood who was devouring half a pan of pizza. The kid gives a small wave and goes back to his pizza, while the Very Perfect Boy beside him scolds him presumably for making a mess.

Fuck.

Why had Jihoon not taken the hot route and went the stupid route when he was choosing a costume?! He chose the French fries costume to match Woojin’s stupid cheese costume but he feels completely cheated because he saw Hyeongseob earlier in a mouse costume and that was probably why Woojin chose his costume.

Guanlin is wearing a paper crown on his head and a piece of cloth that was too short to be a cape but kind of works because he still looks _so_ attractive while eating chicken wings with his hands-

“Stop staring, you creep,” Woojin snaps at him.

Although Jihoon is thankful for the scolding, he still shoves his friend back.

They eat for the rest of the night and dance a little, doing their best not to be kicked by Minki attempting to break dance. It’s all fun and games until they hear a scream and see Daehwi covering his mouth and Guanlin beside him. Everyone looks their direction but Daehwi waves them off, so Jihoon goes back to popping until Daehwi pulls him out of the crowd. He is pulled to a small table beside a skeleton with a Lady Gaga Telephone MV wig, where Guanlin chokes on his drink and starts coughing at the sight of them.

"Guanlin has something to tell you!!"

Judging from the slight furrow in his eyebrows, Guanlin was mildly distressed. Oh my god this was it, Guanlin was going to tell him he was super offended that Jihoon grabbed his sleeve and forced him to waste his time that one lunch time when he was going to leave and-

"Say it or I will," Deflated Grapes threatens menacingly beside Guanlin.

"Iamfriendlessanon."

Jihoon has no time to react yet because Daehwi demands: "LOUDER." Jihoon had no idea Daehwi could be this scary.

"I am Friendless Anon!" Guanlin says loudly. He looks really serious now and Jihoon doesn't know what to think.

Aside from, what the actual fuck?

Smug and satisfied, Daehwi goes back to being his usual happy self. "I'll go leave now so you guys talk about this in private, okay?" And he skips off to the candy buffet table where Bae Jinyoung is wearing a Frankenstein costume.

Now Guanlin looks like he's panicking, fidgeting with his hair and adjusting the cape around his neck. It makes Jihoon panic less for some reason. It's really weird seeing his crush like this and it's even weirder that the guy giving Jihoon all these sparkly feelings and gay panic was now feeling gay panic towards Jihoon. Jihoon feels like he's gaining power.

"I... I was really going to meet you that time at the gym but I kinda panicked when you showed up," Guanlin admits, looking everywhere but Jihoon. "You were so intimidating, Jihoon hyung."

Intimidating? Jihoon was pretty sure he just looked constipated that entire time at the gym, because Guanlin was the one who was intimidating. Guanlin with his stupid fluffy bangs and stupid perfect face with the pretty moles on it was intimidating.

"I even prepared Crunky for you because I read on your [ask.fm](http://ask.fm) that it's your favorite," Guanlin continues glumly. "Then I ate half of it because I couldn't admit that I was that anon being creepy on your [ask.fm](http://ask.fm). I hate Crunky." He sighs heavily.

The situation is so fucking absurd that Jihoon starts laughing. The laughter starts as a small chuckle but escalates into full-blown cackles that have Jihoon clutching at his sides, until he realizes that Guanlin looks entirely uncomfortable, not even a hint of a smile on his face.

"I'm sorry," Guanlin mumbles, looking down at where his hands are balled into fists.

"No!!" Jihoon shakes his head. "I was panicking too!"

Guanlin looks up at him, eyebags emphasizing the level of stress that he is going through.

"I have the biggest crush on you and stalk your Instagram and saw the picture of David Beckham wearing underwear that you posted and I was hoping you were gay too and that Daehwi would take more pictures with you so I can see and coo over how cute you look so of course I was going to die when were you suddenly there when I was going to meet Friendless Anon." All the laughing had relaxed Jihoon but whu did he have to go and say embarrassing things that made him panic again.

Except that Guanlin finds the entire situation funny along with him, and starts laughing a dolphin-like laugh that Jihoon finds entirely endearing and laughs along.

"I'll make it up to you if you spend the rest of the night with me," Guanlin suggests with a shy smile on his face.

Jihoon goes along with this plan, and the two of them spend the rest of the night trick or treating around the neighborhood. The younger boy hands him an extra paper crown to wear so he could be the Prince of Fries and match ordinary prince Guanlin. Jihoon finds that Guanlin isn’t intimidating at all, he was awkward and even randomly sang songs cutely. Overall his crush on Guanlin could only intensify.

At the end of the night, Guanlin gives Jihoon all of the Crunky bars he receives and Jihoon gives him a quick peck on the cheek in return. 

“I’ll give you my number,” Jihoon offers, struggling to take the mobile phone from his jeans pocket as he was wearing the stupid Fries costume.

“No need, you already gave it to me on ask.fm,” Guanlin admits.

The two of them laugh at each other being complete creeps for each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS WAS NOT BETA-READ and i wrote it with half a brain but it kind of came in time for Halloween rip


End file.
